Event

Mason Daring and Jeanie Stahl at me and thee coffeehouse

Film composer Mason Daring has explored many paths on the way to his current career -entertainment lawyer, folk singer, cabbie and truck driver, commercial director, and rock star among them. But his professional life has always returned to the world of music. After a stint on the coffee-house circuit, Daring decided it was time to move ahead. He enrolled at Suffolk Law School, but soon thereafter met folk-singer Jeanie Stahl. Her extraordinary vocal talent persuaded him to renew his performance career -while maintaining his status as a full time law student and paying the bills driving a Checker Cab- and the duo quickly became a staple on the North-East singer/songwriter circuit, playing as far afield as Chicago and New York. Their signature song, "Marblehead Morning," became a hit on regional radio, they released a pair of albums on Philo, and they became such a fixture at Cambridge's famed Passim's Folk Club.

But it was his law work that led, ultimately, to his first film score. He served as legal counsel to first-time filmmaker John Sayles during the production of The Return Of The Secaucus Seven. Sayles had heard Daring's recordings, and at the end of editing came to Mason with an offer to write the music score for the film - for a total budget of $700 dollars. The film was a critical success, and Daring embarked full time into a wide-spanning composing career. While he has managed to leave the practice of law well behind him, he maintains his membership in the Massachusetts bar to this day. Mason also established a record label, Daring Records (a sub-label of Rounder Records), as an outlet to release his film scores and early recordings with Jeanie Stahl.

Marblehead based songstress Jeanie Stahl was on the crest of a promising solo career, in 1983, when a tragic wind surfing accident prevented her from performing for two years. The release of her debut solo album, I'm Just Fooling Myself, came about at that time. In addition to performing frequently at New England folk music clubs and coffeehouses, Jeanie and Mason periodically joined together with Bill Staines, Guy Van Duser and Billy Novick in the folk super-group, The Passim All-Stars. With the increased demand for Daring's time as a producer and soundtrack composer, Stahl began to perform as a soloist in the early-1980s. Although she's turned the songs of such songwriters as Gordon Lightfoot, Robin Batteau and Randy Newman into heartfelt experiences, Stahl remains as effective singing jazz standards from the 1930s and 1940s.